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Legislative places

Legislative places

September 13, 2024

As is often the case in presidential years, the critical parts of Idaho’s general election ballots - ballot issues like initiatives excepted - are the races for the state legislature.

Given that the partisan control of the legislature is not much in question - Republicans are extremely unlikely to be bumped from control next session - that may not seem obvious. But the choice is still in the hands of the voters, and they do have more choices this year than in many legislative contests for decades. Idaho Democrats have nominated an unusually large number of contenders this time, and the recent national Democratic wave of enthusiasm could make more races competitive.

So where should Idahoans be looking for competitive legislative action this time? Let’s run through some of the places where attention may be focused on election night.

District 6 (Moscow-Lewiston). Republican Dan Foreman, in his second tenure as a senator (he was defeated for re-election in between), is as ferocious a hard-right culture warrior as there is in the Idaho Legislature, which is quite a commentary, and he has verbally trashed his own local communities (Moscow and the University of Idaho). His opponent, Democrat Julia Parker, is a Moscow city council member and a complete contrast.

This long has been a politically competitive area, though in recent years Republicans have dominated it. This could go either way, though Parker starts with a good base in Moscow and solid fundraising. At least one of the House races has a competitive look to it too.

District 15 (west Boise area). The state’s premier legislative battleground for years, this district and 26 are the closest Idaho has today to truly purple districts. Long Republican, it is more competitive now due in heavy part to the dogged ice-breaking of Democrat Steve Berch, now running for his fourth term. Last election he was joined here by a Democratic senator, Rick Just. Both work the district intensively, focusing on door to door campaigning.

But this is a hotly competitive place, and especially in a presidential year neither seat can be considered secure. Berch is opposed this time by Annette Tipton and Just by a former representative, Codi Galloway, who he narrowly defeated for the Senate in 2022. Two years ago a third party (Constitution) candidate soaked up a few votes which might have flipped the race the other way; this year, there’s no third party candidate.

The direction of 15, and the potential over time for a purpling of Boise’s suburbs, is very much up for grabs.

District 26 (Jerome, Blaine). Redistricting two years ago reshaped legislative districts in central Idaho, making Democratic Blaine a smaller factor than it had been. It was still big enough, barely, to keep two of the three seats in this northern Magic Valley district Democratic.

Democrat Ron Taylor narrowly beat Republican legislator Laurie Lickley for the Senate seat two years ago, and now they face each other again. Same story with Democratic Representative Ned Burns, who also won narrowly two years ago over Republican Mike Prohanka, and now faces him again. And the House Republican, Jack Nelson, two years ago prevailed by similarly tight margins. The numbers are very close in the Jerome/Wood River district, and either side could end up sweeping it, or splitting it.

District 33 (Idaho Falls). This one is a longer shot, and just one of the three legislative seats in this urban Idaho Falls district is contested. It’s worth a view anyway. This district, or its near equivalents, has been among the few outside the Boise, Moscow, Pocatello or Wood River areas to feature a competitive general election contest in recent decades, and some subtle in-party (Republican) dynamics this year offer a hint of more flexibility than usual. It is one of the more urban districts outside the Boise area.

The incumbent Republican is Representative Barbara Erhardt, one of the most uncompromising of legislative social warriors. Democrat Miranda Marquit, chair of the county Democratic organization, has run against Erhardt twice before, losing decisively both times. Will history simply repeat? Maybe, even probably, but if this is an unusual year the numbers might change enough to offer hope to more Democratic candidates here in the future.

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Undue Burden

September 11, 2024

Critical tears in our social fabric often descend to the status of"issues," become shorthand phrases or even just acronyms ... while the dirty, difficult impacts on actual human lives go unremarked.

In Undue Burden: Life and Death Decisions in Post-Roe America, writer Shefali Luthra has taken mostly the less visible and often rougher road of recounting how a massive policy change made by players in D.C. and certain statehouses actually played out among the Americans those decisions were intended to affect. They affected them, all right, but often in unexpected and frequently tragic ways.

As the title indicates, the issue is abortion, and specifically what happened in the lives of many people - those who were pregnant, working as medical or administrative personnel or in other roles - as the law surrounding what was legal, and wasn't, kept changing at blinding speed.

Many of the impacts are what you might imagine, but many - as emerges through the detailed reporting here - are less obvious. The effects in states where abortion is wholly or almost completely banned might not surprise, but some of the impacts on the still-legal states might: Massively swamped health facilities that limit the ability of patients (for abortion and other health treatments) to obtain care. Some of those challenges might ease up in time as resources shift location, but the unknowns are many.

There are some important impacts that seem to have escaped, at least mostly, news media and other journalistic attention. One example is the effect of abortion bans on medical education; in ban states, medical schooling for many areas of health - not only abortion, and not only reproductive health, but many subjects beyond - will be impaired. The training of a generation of physicians in something close to half the country is about to be badly damaged.

The individual stories are gripping; the tension and risk involved is (in the reading) novelistic.

And like any good book about social changes, there's a nod to what lies ahead. Luthra doesn't, course, try to produce a crystal ball; we'd have to know for sure what the results of November's general elections will be before we could even hazard a guess.

But while Luthra's story may for now lack a second act, the lessons from the first are evident: A lot of people are likely to be badly damaged, and probably will die, as long as our current path is unchanged.

 

Close and closer

September 10, 2024

If things keep going the way they are now, we're going to have the closest Presidential election in decades.

This month's well-respected national Pew poll showed 46% favoring Kamala Harris and 45% DJT.  A single percentage point difference with a margin of error of 3-4-percent.

Backers in both camps talk of a "breakout moment" but no one has been able to define such.  Or do such.  We just keep waiting.

As if that weren't enough to keep worriers worrying, Trump has already begun beating the "election integrity" drums,  threatening to challenge November results in each state.

Used to be - before things went all electronic - you voted, then went home to watch the results.  Now, you vote, go home and wait for the challenges to come in.

Elections are meant to pick winners.  And, they do.  Most of the time. But, the challenge process has been more active of late.  Challenges, in some places, have dragged the process out for weeks.

Most election rules allow for challenges to this-and-that.  And, for the most part, that's been a good thing.  Making sure results are accurate.  Keeping the voting process on the right track.

But, we've seen - all too many times - challenges that were "off the wall."  Just meant to stir things up rather than assure results were accurate and that the rules were followed.   That could be what we see nationally in November.  Challenges here and there just for the sake of challenging.  Casting doubt.  Just for the hell of it.

Some of Trump's followers have already promised doing just that.  If they do, we'll be waiting for the final count long after November 5th.

Trump's ever-present, dour countenance continues.  His disruptive presence will hang around, no matter the outcome in November.

While Republicans have long produced a plethora of candidates in nearly all elections, Democrats have struggled to keep up.  Their bench of candidates-in-waiting has been noticeably thin in some places.  Typically, in Idaho, for example, as in nearly half the 2020 races for the Idaho Legislature, Republicans ran unopposed.

Oregon does somewhat better, even attracting a goodly number of third Party names on the ballot.  While Idaho is stridently Republican, Oregon leans more to a true two-party presence with a generally good mix to pick from.  There are more contested races, top to bottom.

Oregon, which has been considered "purple" for a long time, has been shifting slightly leftward and can reasonably be called a "Robin's egg" shade of blue.  Idaho, at the same time, has been consistently a deeper shade of "red."

How much faith one puts in polling differs considerably.  But, it really doesn't mean much this far out when candidates are still running neck-and-neck.  You'll see more meaningful results a couple of weeks before November five.

But, it's going to be really tight this time.  Which means you'll need more popcorn.  Better lay in a stock.  And, another log for the fire.

 

From out of state

September 9, 2024

With the political season upon us, extreme-right dark money interests are gearing up to elect legislative candidates who will sing their tune in the Idaho Legislature. They were somewhat successful in the closed GOP primary election, defeating several reasonable Republicans who supported public education. They are now gunning for Democratic candidates who oppose spending public money to subsidize the education of private and religious school students.

The American Federation for Children (AFC), a billionaire-funded political action committee with a school privatization agenda, has begun smearing Democrats. AFC falsely claims Democratic candidates have “sided with radical special interests and OPPOSED parental rights” because the Democrats oppose forcing taxpayers to pay for private and religious schooling. One grotesque ad portrays Senator Rick Just of Boise as a puppet being manipulated by some unseen puppet master. It is an ugly exercise in gaslighting. The AFC’s only reason for existence is to buy legislators who will do its bidding. Another ad claims Just opposed property tax relief, which is patently false.

I’ve known Senator Just for decades. He is nobody’s puppet. Rather, he is a remarkable public servant. Rick served as a Marine, was educated at Boise State and went on to work for the Idaho Department of Parks and Recreation for 30 years. In 2023, he carried the bill in the Senate to appropriate $100 million to fund long overdue maintenance and infrastructure for the state parks that people of every political persuasion enjoy. He has stood tall in the Legislature for Idaho’s veterans. In addition to his legislative service, he is a dedicated student of Idaho history, writing about it in his Speaking of Idaho blog.

There can be no doubt that the AFC will continue to conduct a ruthless and truthless campaign against Rick and his Democratic colleagues who believe that private and religious school patrons should not be allowed to feed at the public taxpayers’ trough.

AFC and several other school privatization zealots funded by out-of-state dark money were up to their ears in the closed GOP primary, using scorched earth campaign tactics to defeat reasonable Republicans who strongly supported Idaho’s public schools.

AFC invested $400,000 in the effort to elect extremist legislators favorable to its causes. The Idaho Citizens Alliance spent a similar amount for the same purpose, all but $10,000 of which came from out of state. Make Liberty Win, a Virginia group tied to Texas-based Young Americans for Liberty, spent more than $703,000 supporting extremist candidates in the May primary. This combined effort succeeded in defeating several Republican legislators who were dedicated public school supporters.

Now, the outsiders have turned their malevolent designs upon the Democrats who stand between private schools and the public treasury. It is time for reasonable Idahoans who value public education over unaccountable private and religious schools to put aside partisanship and support candidates who will support and adequately fund public education. Idaho’s future depends on ordinary people becoming informed on the issues so that they can see through the smokescreen spewed out by these out-of-state groups that have no interest in the future of Idaho’s kids.

Voters who want to save our public schools from the billionaire onslaught must do a modest bit of homework. Here are some tips to casting an informed vote:

  1. Don’t be swayed by attack ads. Rely on factual material.
  2. Check out factual voter guides. Take Back Idaho will have a factual voter guide and Idaho Education News will likely have a reliable guide also.
  3. Ask door knockers of college age whether they are being paid by Young Americans for Liberty or similar groups to hand out campaign materials. If so, place the billionaire hit piece in the recycle bin
  4. Vote only for candidates who will support the public school system, regardless of party affiliation. Remember that every taxpayer dollar going to private and religious schools comes out of the public school budget.
  5. Vote for the Open Primaries Initiative, which will restore civility, competence and pragmatism to governing in the Gem State.
  6. Don’t let the out-of-state sleaze merchants control Idaho’s political future.

 

Mass participation in Idaho

Mass participation in Idaho

September 6, 2024

It’s easy as we look out on this national political season to feel sidelined if you’re not a resident of one of the six or seven or so battleground states, none of which are in the northwest.

But that doesn’t mean you have to be sidelined as a matter of practice.

Let’s put that to an acid test: Suppose you’re a Democratic woman in Idaho. How much impact can you have?

A surprising amount, if you pay attention and maybe participate in the activities of one of Idaho’s largest and least-heralded political organizations, the Idaho Women for Harris/Walz (formerly, up until a few weeks ago, Biden/Harris).

The group was founded several years ago by a gathering of active Democratic women in Idaho. The most visible of them include Betty Richardson, a former U.S. attorney who for decades has been one of the best political organizers the state has seen. Working as a Democrat in Idaho long has presented big challenges, but the IWHW has demonstrated, and may demonstrate in this year’s election, how to get things done in spite of those challenges.

Outside of its membership, the organization has mostly flown under the radar up to now, but that may be changing. Based largely on a Facebook group, but also using an e-mail list, it has brought together a large number of like-minded women, many of whom are oriented toward activism. (Not all of the members are Idahoans, but most are, and the minority of outsiders generally have a strong connection to Idaho.)

During the Democratic National Convention, they distributed a press release saying the organization now has more than 12,000 members, most of whom are widely scattered around the state, in large communities and small, many in places where actual Democratic presence often is rendered invisible.

The release said “IW4HW is one of the largest all-volunteer groups of Idahoans ever organized around a presidential campaign, and is one of the biggest such groups per capita in the nation.  The grassroots group formed in July of 2020 and was previously titled "Idaho Women for Biden/Harris."  After President Biden announced his decision to end his bid for re-election and endorsed Vice President Harris, the group changed its name.”

Don’t expect, though, that involvement in the presidential contest is the limit of its interest or activities.

The release added: “The group has members from all 44 Idaho counties, from north and south, from big cities and small towns, from political newbies to seasoned hands. Its members are Democrats, Republicans and Independents, and include several past and present elected officials.”

Richardson said during the Democratic convention that the group had grown by more than 1,000 members just in the previous month.

Okay, it’s a lot of people, but what can it do?

Quite a lot, both in-state and out.

Within the state, there are this year an unusually large number of Democratic candidates running for the state legislature, and those who are active candidates desperately need local people to help. A group of this size and spread could provide critical help (not just money, but labor as well) to many of them.

All of that applies when it comes to ballot issues, too.

Nationally, they can matter too. The political game this year is voter turnout, and communication with erratic or uncertain voters will be critical to winning the presidency and in states where key congressional races are taking place. People living in Idaho can’t easily be on the scene in those places, but they can communicate by phone, by electronic communications and by print mail to inform and urge them to get their ballots cast (which starts happening in only a couple of weeks). A group of 12,000 can provide an enormous amount of critical leverage.

Numbers are power in politics, and this Idaho group’s numbers are enough to matter.

 

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A regional pitch for Harris

September 4, 2024

In Idaho’s all-Republican congressional delegation, there are two things you will find during a presidential election campaign: Heavy praise for the Republican nominee (in this case, former President Trump) and plenty of darts to the Democratic nominee. Vice President Kamala Harris has been labeled as a disaster, if you talk with some of the higher-ups in Idaho politics.

There are no congressional Democrats in the Gem State to counter those claims – unless you look to a couple of our neighboring states. Sen. Ron Wyden’s constituency in Oregon includes those who are aspiring to be part of “Greater Idaho” and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington represents areas that practically are an Idaho Vandals’ first down away from the Evergreen state’s border. That is, if you are living in Lewiston, Moscow or Post Falls.

And, as with three of the four members of Idaho’s congressional delegation, Wyden and Murray have been around for a long time. Wyden was elected to the Senate in 1996 and has been in Congress since 1981, the same year that Ronald Reagan came into power. Murray is in her sixth term in the Senate. Not surprisingly, both are enthusiastically endorsing the Harris-Walz ticket. 

“I’ve been proud to work with Vice President Harris and the Biden administration on a record of Democratic successes these past three and a half years, including historic wins over Big Pharma and major gains in the fights against wealthy tax cheats and the climate crisis,” said Wyden in a statement from his office. 

Murray, in a released statement, touted her candidate’s accomplishments. 

“Vice President Harris helped deliver the strongest economic comeback in the world after Trump badly mismanaged much of the COVID-19 pandemic. She helped pass landmark bipartisan legislation to rebuild our infrastructure, bring semiconductor manufacturing home, and to greatly expand care and benefits to our veterans. Kamala was the deciding vote to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, which has created hundreds of thousands of jobs and is lowering prescription drug costs.” 

It’s no mystery where the three Pacific Northwest states are likely to go in this election. Trump is poised to carry Idaho by a wide margin, as all GOP candidates have since 1968. Harris is almost a cinch to carry Oregon and Washington – the only real question is by how much. But it doesn’t stop the leading politicos from expressing their views about the election. Sens. Mike Crapo and Jim Risch have attacked Harris on the economy and foreign policy, and Democratic senators have no hesitation about building a case for Harris. 

“From the start, Kamala has made clear her campaign is focused on growing the middle class,” says Murray. “She is focused on building more housing to lower costs, expanding the child tax credit and making child care more affordable and accessible. Kamala knows that you don’t grow the economy by cutting taxes for billionaires and giant corporations – you invest in families.” 

Wyden was among the many Democrats nudging President Biden to step aside after that disastrous debate performance in June, saying “I have made it clear that the top priority has got to be defeating Donald Trump.” Wyden says the Harris-Walz ticket gives Democrats the energy, and momentum, needed to accomplish that goal.

The Oregon senator says Harris and Walz can build on the administration’s “impressive record and defeat Donald Trump – a convicted felon who wants to yank America backward with his checkered and erratic past of right-wing extremism on women’s health care, dirty energy and more.”

In Murray’s eyes, the stakes in this election go beyond the presidential race.

“With a Democratic majority in Congress, Kamala will restore a woman’s right to make her own health care decisions,” the senator said. “If you want to protect your freedoms and build an economy for working people, not billionaires, Kamala is your candidate.”

Chances are that Harris won’t be Idaho’s candidate as electoral votes are tallied, although a fair number of folks will appreciate the remarks from the neighboring Democratic senators.

Chuck Malloy is a long-time Idaho journalist and columnist. He may be reached at ctmalloy@outlook.com

 

Pick a poll

September 3, 2024

Pick any one of the hundreds of polls out there in the media-sphere and you'll find no more than two-four points separating the candidates for President.  Go ahead.  Check it out.

Imagine what this portends for the November election.  If you believe the polling, you're likely bracing for a statistical tie, in which case, the nation will face a runoff election - probably in January.

Donald Trump is getting set for just such a situation.  He's already filing "intent-to-sue" paperwork in multiple states.

All of which means it won't be over by bedtime on November 5th.

Oh, Joy!

Many years ago, as a Chinese fortune teller was ending our seance, she intoned "May you live in interesting times."  Well, I guess these are it!  Or, them.

Most of the TV talking heads must be taking those polls seriously.  I haven't heard one yet forecasting the outcome.  Even on Fox.

This country doesn't like "close" or "virtually tied."  We like to see a winner, no matter the subject: baseball, football, golf, Chess or tiddly winks.  Clear cut!  Shut case!  A winner!

But, "clear cut" is not likely to define this election.

I'm going to get a little personal here.  I don't understand how nearly half the electorate can get behind DJT.  I just can't.  When compared to VP Kamala Harris, on almost any basis, it doesn't add up.

Not that she's the perfect candidate.  She's not.  But, compared to a guy with more than 35 felony convictions, a history of lying about nearly everything and a failure at every business he's tried, why is this so close?  Why is a candidate for President - currently our U.S. Vice President, a former U.S. Senator and a California Attorney General with spotless life and work histories - in a statistical tie with this guy?

And this.

With a candidate with those bona fides, why is nearly half of the electorate backing this felon?  Some 40-50-million folks.  That's a lot of people.  That, too, does not add up.

But, sad to say, "it is what it is" and those are the cards we've been dealt.  Helluva game.

As of today, 63 days to November 5th, 63 days to the vote counting.  Sixty-three days to a slew of election challenges.

Pick a poll.  And, hang on.  Tight!

 

The new suit

September 2, 2024

You have to hand it to Attorney General Raul Labrador. He can’t be shamed out of pursuing a foolish course of action. Just days after the Idaho Supreme Court unceremoniously tossed the Attorney General’s lawsuit to kill the Open Primaries Initiative (OPI), he’s at it again. In the Supreme Court’s opinion dismissing Labrador’s first suit, the Court said he “fundamentally misapprehends the role of this Court under the Idaho Constitution and the role of the Secretary of State under the initiative laws enacted by the Idaho Legislature.” That stinging rebuke did not stop Labrador from filing another suit attacking the initiative. It, too, will end up on the legal trash heap.

Labrador falsely claims in the new lawsuit, as he did in the first suit, that the OPI must be killed because it was misrepresented by OPI proponents. He supports his case with nine “declarations” (sworn statements) from his friends, who assert that signature gatherers tried to conceal that the initiative provided for ranked-choice voting in the general election. That would be pretty hard to do, because the ballot titles, which were front and center on every petition, explained exactly how the new voting system would work–abolish party primaries and establish a ranked-choice general election. Labrador should have known that because he drew up those ballot titles after the Supreme Court rebuked him for the misleading ballot titles he initially drafted.

Labrador was not particularly clever in selecting the nine declarants to support his new case. They appear to be his political confederates. The most conspicuous is Jacob Ball, a former Congressional staffer for Labrador, who has set up a political action committee to oppose the OPI. Months ago, Labrador endorsed another declarant, Steve Tanner, for the House seat in District 13B. Benjamin Chafetz is an extreme-right candidate for the District 17 Senate seat. Ryan Spoon, a failed candidate for the College of Western Idaho board, appears to be member of the extremist branch of the GOP.

The AG is demanding a decision in the case by early September. That would require numerous violations of court procedural rules. Labrador may not know this, but he must follow the procedural rules, just like any other Idaho lawyer. All of the declarants claim they were hoodwinked by signature gatherers in August or September of last year. A judge will want to know why it took almost a year for these individuals to come forward with their misrepresentation claims. Regardless, the OPI has already been certified so it is too late to challenge it. A competent lawyer would comprehend that simple fact.

The misrepresentation statute that Labrador is relying upon is also a stumbling block for his case. A federal court judge in Idaho has held the statute to be constitutionally unsound. Even if the statute did not have constitutional problems, it could not be used as a basis for invalidating the OPI.

In sum, Labrador’s second suit is so fraught with problems that it won’t go anywhere. That leaves one to wonder why it was filed. One possible answer is that the suit is just a publicity stunt, dreamed up by Labrador to try to besmirch the OPI.

The other possibility is a much more sinister one–that Labrador and his declarants are engaged in a conspiracy to deprive Idahoans of their sacred initiative rights under the Idaho Constitution. Either way, the suit is a fool’s errand and a waste of time and resources for both the courts and the AG’s office.

What comes through clearly is that Labrador is frightened to distraction by the OPI. It will end his future in Idaho politics by getting rid of the closed GOP primary. The OPI will bring a breath of fresh air to Idaho government because it favors the most highly-regarded candidates and disfavors extremists.

 

A new right darling

August 31, 2024

Steve Symms was a politician ahead of his time. And that is no compliment.

Symms, an Idaho Republican who served in the House of Representatives and the Senate for 20 years, died August 8 at age 86. The former Canyon County fruit farmer was remembered by current Senator James Risch as a “staunch defender of conservative values in Washington, D.C., for the people of Idaho.” Idaho Governor Brad Little, who announced Symms’ death, called him “a true patriot … God bless this fighter for Idaho values.”

There is no question that Symms was a political figure of consequence, and not because of any list of legislative accomplishments — there are none — but because Symms was one of the earliest and most effective practitioners of the so-called “New Right’s” politics of grievance and resentment.

As effective a retail politician as almost anyone in the state’s history, a back-slapper who was quick with a quip, Symms knew how to work a room and charm voters, while often peddling genuine nonsense — or worse.

Beneath his sunny personality beat the heart of a cultural warrior ready at any moment to flay the liberal enemy. Symms’ defeat of four-term Democratic Senator Frank Church in 1980 marked a decisive turning point in Idaho’s political trajectory as well that of the national Republican Party. In many ways, we are living with the politics that Symms and others on the 1970s New Right ushered in.

Symms was a charter member of a group of young, far-right conservatives who came to Congress in the messy years when Richard Nixon was forced to resign the presidency. In the view of many of these sharp-elbowed conservatives, moderate Gerald Ford, who replaced Nixon, was little more than a RINO (Republican in name only).

When Ford nominated former New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller as vice president in 1974, Symms opposed the appointment. Rockefeller, Symms said, was evidence “of the rapid movement to the left by the Ford administration.” The choice of Rockefeller was “abrogation of liberty,” Symms said, “what we can expect from the mish-mash of unphilosophical ooze that the two-party system has degenerated into.”

You might think the incessant Republican attacks on the Environmental Protection Agency, the IRS or the media are a 21st century phenomenon, but Symms was regularly attacking the same “enemies” 50 years ago.

In 1980, for example, Symms supporters sported bumper stickers reading: “I’m voting for Steve Symms, the Statesman made me do it,” a reference to Idaho’s largest newspaper that had reported extensively – and fairly – on the support Symms received from New Right groups.

It was little noted in Idaho before 1980, but Symms was deeply involved with the founding fathers of the ideological, grievance-obsessed movement that engineered the GOP transformation in the mid-1970s.

“The late Paul Weyrich was the foremost political strategist of the movement,” columnist Stuart Rothenberg has written. “He was joined by people such as Ed Feulner of the Heritage Foundation, Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus, televangelist Jerry Falwell and direct-mail guru Richard Viguerie, all of whom … wanted to steer the country dramatically to the right.”

Symms, along with North Carolina’s Jesse Helms, Indiana’s Dan Quayle and the only member of this group still in the Senate, Iowa’s Chuck Grassley, were darlings of the New Right. Symms attended their trainings, utilized their talking points, sat on their advisory committees and, of course, vacuumed up their campaign money.

You hear echoes of these original New Right warriors in the current assaults on higher education, libraries, climate science and reproductive and voting rights. And that list doesn’t really get to the main feature of the modern GOP – total disdain for basic character and decency.

GOP vice presidential candidate JD Vance was born during Symms’s first Senate term, but the generational difference doesn’t mean they aren’t members of the same ideological family.

The political brilliance of people like Weyrich and Viguerie — and the racist Helms — resided in their understanding of how to appeal to “low information voters,” who are, not incidentally, the largest group of Donald Trump followers. These folks display only passing interest in politics and governing, but are mad as hell about immigrants, the “deep state” and “communists.” The New Right’s originalist strategy was to rile up these infrequent voters with dystopian visions of a country going down the toilet because of guys like Frank Church, who, after 24 years of distinguished service, was accused of being “too liberal for Idaho.”

The National Conservative Political Action Committee — Roger Stone was a founder — saw in Symms a vehicle to remake the national party. NCPAC’s landmark — and grossly unfair — attacks on Democratic incumbents in 1980 seem almost quaint by today’s smashmouth political standards. Yet, the histrionic direct mail, distorted television and big lies worked. And they still work.

The issue mix in Symms’ 1980 race against Church included, of course, opposition to abortion, challenging whether “liberal” New York City deserved financial help from Washington, D.C., undermining the treaty that returned control of the Panama Canal to Panama and promoting the wholly invented Sagebrush Rebellion, an issue that worked particularly well in Idaho with Symms talking constantly about federal government overreach allegedly destroying the state’s economy.

There is, of course, some irony in Idaho’s governor praising Symms’ support of “conservative values,” not including apparently Symms peddling the entirely fabricated but widely disseminated story that Kitty Dukakis, the wife of the 1988 Democratic presidential candidate, Michael Dukakis, had once burned an American flag.

And missing from most Symms obituaries was any reference to why he left the Senate in 1993 after two terms at age 54.

“He duped her, then he dumped her,” editorialized the Twin Falls Times-News after it broke the story in 1991 about Symms campaigning with his wife, Fran, to get reelected in 1986 and then, after being romantically linked to a staff member, filing for divorce.

That interview with the Times-News in June 1991 was the only one Fran Symms gave regarding the divorce and the rumors of her husband’s affair.

“Steve Symms is under fire, not for the divorce, but for being two-faced,” wrote Bill Hall of the Lewiston Tribune. “He has cynically used, not only his wife, but the people of Idaho to whom he has also been legally linked for two decades. They should copy their remedy from him: Divorce him.”

The senator announced his retirement two months later.

This much of Governor Little’s tribute was correct: The Symms who trafficked in smears, was concerned about Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s appointment because of her views on abortion and said that when all else fails, American justice should come from “the cartridge box,” exemplified what surely have become Idaho’s political values.

Steve Symms was a man before his time.